Chapter Six: Toughen Up. (~jinghan)

Note from the author: I could be getting some well deserved sleep but this post is a week overdue, pretend I’m writing this five days ago.

I’m agnostic. But if I believe in some God(dess) of fixed identity, then s/he is a very sly cheeky deity that answers prayers in the most obscure of ways.

It was Wednesday and my feeling of purposelessness was at an all time low, and I had just about has as much of long-distance-relationship as I could bare without tears and heart-ache. But as I flick through through the paper a headline catches my attention:

Why women aren’t getting it in the boardroom or the bedroom*
— Fear of rejection keeps women from pushing for what they want.

International Women’s Day brought the usual complaints about the lack of women on corporate boards…

…most women dread these negotiations, putting them on par with a visit to the dentist. As for men – well, they are more likely to treat them as wrestling matches, happily coming back for a second and third round. And if they are knocked back, they take it in their tride. Most men handle this type of rejection much better than women.

What’s really interesting is that the same pattern emerges in our most intimate relationships. My research on how couples negotiate their sex supply revealed men’s extraordinary resilience, their willingness to keep trying for that green light.

…Women are afraid to ask and they pay the price.

Already the rebellious juices were dripping from my jaws. I don’t want to be like the other women. For God’s sake, I’m a maths major! Already, the fact that I was drowning in self pity just five minutes ago was being forgotten. God, women that dwell on self pity, eurgh, as if I’m one of those. Burn! Fight! Kill!

It’s 12pm when I get home from the Start of Uni Party (my first uni party). On many occasions I have come home late from a night out, the adrenalin fades, and the realisation that I am tired and alone quickly kicks in and various horrible emotional pitiful things follow. But not tonight. Burn! Fight! Kill! Before I’ve even changed out of my party dress, I’m sitting on my bed reading my in2science training brochure and looking up google maps for how to get to my host school for the next day. I had left arranging my meet up with the teacher I would be working with for this voluntary program a bit late, but I was determined to make amends by being completely organised about it hereon… as I read the training brochure at 1am…

You’d think my God(dess) would be satisfied with my call to action so far. But being the sly cheeky thing s/he is I am thrown another headline that coincidentally catches my attention:

The Roar of the Tiger Mom.**

It was the “Little White Donkey” incident that pushed many readers over the edge. That’s the name of the piano tune that Amy Chua, Yale law professor and self-described “tiger mother,” forced her 7-year-old daughter Lulu to practice for hours on end – “right through dinner into the night,” with no breaks for water or even the bathroom, until at last Lulu learned to play the piece.

…Most surprising of all to Chua’s detractors maybe the fact that many elements of her approach are supported by research in psychology and cognitive science. Take for example, her assertion that American parents go too far in insulating their children from discomfort and distress. Chinese parents, by contrast, she writes, “assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.”

… if you repeat the same task again and again, it will eventually become automatic. Your brain will literally change so that you can complete the task without thinking about it. Once this happens, the brain has made mental space for higher-order operations…

Hardwork, persistence, no patience for excuses: whether Chinese or American, that sounds like a prescription for success with which it’s very difficult to argue.

Outrageous unexplained opening, following through to scientific reasoning, softened by personal recounts, and a punching ending… I was too hard to resist. Toughen up. I told myself. Life’s not a plate of cookies presented to you, you have to go plough the field, grow the wheat, grind it into flour, and do it all over again for sugar and cocoa before you even get to start baking your cookie.

It wasn’t until I got home and actually practised the harp, like actually going-over-each-bar-carefully-and-repetitively practised, that I realised how much the articles had made me rethink my wafting about in self-pity. And weirdest thing of all: I could feel my playing getting better and I was actually enjoying the hard work and feeling good about myself. All while planning ahead to do three hours of maths study after dinner and actually looking forward to it.

Pft. The sly cheeky God(dess).

— —

* link to full article for “Why women aren’t getting it in the boardroom or the bedroom” – The Age, March 9, 2011

**link to full article for “Roar of the Tiger Mom.” – TIME, January 10, 2011